TMNT: Dark Paradise
by tmntpunx
Summary: One shots based on prompts for the 2016 Leorai Week on Tumblr, set across multiple verses. Verse and prompt noted in the chapter title. Leonardo x Karai.
1. Injured (2014)

"Don't touch me!" Karai snapped as she kicked backwards, propelling herself away from him.

"But you're hurt."

"No shit," Karai glared at Leonardo in the darkness. "You're the one that did this to me!"

The turtle sighed.

The kunoichi squirmed, trying to prop herself up against the airconditioning unit. The cool metal sent a chill down her spine beneath her body armor. Leonardo stood a few paces away from her, the silhouette of his strange form and twin katana stretching across the rooftop. She could not see his face. He was little more than a shadow backlit against the wash of light pollution that spilled over the city, red as the dead tide.

She wrenched her arm from her side, forcing the movement through the pain. Her fingers met the gash in the side of her armor, tracing where his katana had met her flesh. Silently cursing herself, Karai held her arm in a feeble attempt staunch the blood flow. She swore under her breath at her her own stupidity for leaving herself open like that. She had been too stupid to block on the right; the ambidextrous bastard had seen his opening and he took it.

Leonardo sheathed his katana over his shell.

"Let me help you," he reached out a three fingered hand. "I didn't mean to - "

"Fuck you!" she spat, baring her teeth.

The turtle's mouth was a doleful line across his muzzle. He withdrew his hand and hitched his thumbs in the leather belt slung across his waist. Karai gritted her teeth. Her eyes darted across the rooftop, halting where her own katana had been abandoned when their battle ended. Her sword was as good as gone, but she still had a dagger in her boot. If he came any closer…

"Come on," Leonardo said, gently.

He was standing over her now, blocking out the moon. Blood was pooling between her fingers. She was still trying to hold herself together. He bent over her and her body stiffened.

"No," she protested, recoiling from his touch.

"You need stitches," he insisted.

"Because of you," she hissed as he hoisted her up. The sky reeled above her, hazy and red and streaked with shuddering neon emanating from streets that seemed to stretch on forever into the night.

Leonardo lifted her effortlessly, his sinewy arms encircling her waist. Karai grimaced, the wound at her side weeping, wet and red. She hung in his arms, limp and useless, her legs dangling over the crook of his elbow. He brought her close to his bony plated chest but she was too drained to struggle against him. She felt something wet dripping down her side beneath her body armor.

Karai drew a labored breath. She had never been so close to him before. Her fingers yearned for the knife in her boot, but she knew she was too weak for it to do any good. She forced herself to take another breath and she was overwhelmed by his scent. The turtle smelled of sweat and leather, and something else. Karai's nose wrinkled instinctively. He smelled like the Shredder's incense, like smoky rakoku aloeswood. Sharp as sandalwood.

It was the smell of a warrior.

The kunoichi's eyes met his and something stirred inside her. Was this creature so different than them? Was he so unlike her? Her dark eyes silently searched his face, and she understood why he refused to leave her. He was bound by honor, just as she was. His body was a weapon. He was an instrument of his master, just as she was. The corner of his mouth turned up into the slightest smile and a rush of resentment washed over her, leaving her blood boiling.

"Ready?" the giant asked gently, tilting his head to the side as he looked down on her.

The moon shone like a milky pearl in the dead red sky.

"Fuck you," Karai wheezed. "And your honor," she added acerbically.

"I'll take that as a yes."

 **A/N:** Yeah, I realize Karai is a little OOC for 2014 in this, but petulant butthead star crossed lovers are my favorite.


	2. Reunion (2012)

"Hey stranger!"

Leonardo looked up from a cup of tepid tea.

"Hello Lucy," he smiled solemnly.

"Long time no see!" the petite Neutrino hopped up behind the bar. "Need a warm up?"

"No, thank you though," Leonardo's fingers curled around the cup. They weren't supposed to meet until eight, but he had been sitting at the bar since six. He was almost certain the station had completed its daily orbit in that time. Two moons had passed beyond the window while he waited. Eventually he had stopped counting. Instead, he had just poured himself another cup of tea.

But now the teapot was empty, and his tea cup was nearly cold.

Behind the bar, Lucy slung her apron around her diminutive waist. Her blue lips quirked into a smile. "Meetin' somebody?"

Leonardo gave her a knowing look.

"Oh. Right," Lucy winked at him, long glittering green eyelashes flashing in the low light of the cantina. "Space samurai client confidentiality. How could I forget?"

"No clients tonight," the turtle could not help but smile a sober smile. "I'm meeting an old friend, actually."

"Want a sake while you wait?"

Leonardo politely declined, though he would have loved nothing more than to say yes. Sake was his usual drink of choice, and when Lucy was tending bar, he always got the top shelf stuff for the bottom shelf price. However, he had promised himself he would refrain tonight. Tea would have to do until after he saw her. But after that he made no promises. Not to himself. Not to her. Not to anyone.

"Well, if you need anythin' just holler," Lucy said, almost having the shout over the current of chatter that swelled in the cantina like a rising tide.

The turtle nodded and thanked her, but she was already sliding down the bar, her holographic blue hair extensions sending light dancing everywhere she went. Blue specs of light glinted in an empty glass a triceraton had been nursing since before Lucy came on shift, and with a wink and a smile the little Neutrino was swapping it out for something bigger and brighter and more expensive. Leonardo was sure of it.

The turtle glanced back at his cup of tea, now cold. As he counted the few solemn leaves that had settled at the bottom of the cup, he almost reconsidered taking Lucy up on her offer. He thought of his "old friend". His thoughts drifted to her lips, her hips, her self-satisfied smile. His mouth was becoming uncomfortably dry, and his cup was almost empty.

"You make a girl wait twenty years to see you and you don't even buy her a drink?"

Leonardo turned, and there she was.

Karai was taller than he remembered, but maybe that was the moto boots she was wearing. Her raven hair was long now; though it was shaved on the sides, it spilled over her shoulder, dark as a moonless night. There was a short sword slung beneath her leather jacket.

"Hello Karai," he said, trying to sound as calm and conversational as he had with Lucy only a moment ago. "How've you been?" he ventured.

"Just about as pissed off as I was the last time I saw you," Karai slid onto the barstool beside him. Her dark brown eyes darted down the length of the bar. She must have caught Lucy's attention because she signaled curtly with two fingers. "If you wanna talk about it you're gonna need to buy me a drink."

"O-of course," Leonardo stammered, his mouth now painfully dry. Twenty years later and she still made him feel like an inept teenage boy.

He had never loved anyone else. He'd had his share of fucks and flings in his sojourns across space, but he had never loved anyone else after he left Earth. It had always been her. Always. Yet now he sat beside her, silent and solemn as he had ever been.

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were just like his; like his master's. Leonardo's breath caught in his throat as he thought of that final battle. Those last few minutes before Master Splinter's life was ripped away. And after - he could not even bring himself to think about what had happened after. After he had left everything behind.

Even her.

"I can't believe I was stupid enough to believe you would come back," her words were so quiet he could barely hear them over the crowd.

Before she turned away from him, Leonardo watched the anger vanish from her eyes.

And he knew was going to need that sake, after all.

 **A/N:** I set out to write a ficlet where in the 2012 verse Leonardo went to space and never came back, but it ended up being an homage of sorts to princessebee's vision for Leonardo in her DAC verse. So if you liked this you should totally read her fic Crossroads . It's one of my favorites.


	3. Space Heroes (2012)

"Give it up Leo," Karai said, idly turning the page of one of her Japanese alternative fashion magazines. "I'm not watching that stupid show with you."

"Space Heroes is _not_ stupid, Karai," Leonardo huffed beside her on the couch. "It's brilliant."

"Please don't start on how it's the most inspired cultural commentary of the twentieth century," Karai rolled her kohl lined eyes. "Just don't."

"But what makes science fiction great is not when it speculates on what could be - "

"But when it comments on what is," Karai finished for him, turning to the next page. "Why don't you want to spend your twenty-first birthday shit-faced like the rest of your brothers?"

"Because I want to spend it watching Space Heroes with you," Leonardo smiled at her.

Karai sighed and continued to flip through the pages of her magazine. Down the hall Raphael was screaming for more shots. Karai turned the page again, determined to read despite the cacophony erupting all around them in the recesses of the lair. As she did so, Leonardo flopped into her lap, letting his head rest on the thick magazine spread over her thighs.

"Please?" he tried smiling again. "On your birthday we did the thing you wanted to try."

"Yeah, well, that was fun for both of us," the kunoichi yanked her magazine out from under the turtle's head. "Space Heroes is not."

"Please?" Leonardo pleaded, his head hitting her thighs with a soft thump. "Remember? The _thing_?"

"Everyone knows we did shibari, Leo," Karai chuckled sardonically. "You don't have to keep calling it the _thing_."

Leonardo blushed even though they were alone.

Down the hall, something crashed loudly. Karai stiffened at the sound of April screaming shrilly in excitement. The turtle rolled out of her lap. Dejected, he slumped against the couch cushions. Karai pretended not to notice over the page of her magazine. Unfortunately, Leonardo caught her eye. She silently cursed herself. She could have sworn he wasn't looking.

"Please?" he asked again now that he knew he had her attention. And then he cocked a brow ridge beneath his blue mask. "I know you like it when I beg."

Refusing to be swayed, Karai trained her eyes back on her magazine. The turtle leaned in from across the couch and nipped playfully at her neck as she pretended to read about what was currently passing for punk in Japanese street style. He kissed her throat and Karai let her neck tip back, opening to him, unfurling like a blossoming flower. Leonardo made his way up her neck, slowly, so agonizingly slowly. When he reached her ear, Karai's magazine thumped shut in her lap. As he pulled her pierced earlobe into his mouth with his teeth her back arched against the couch cushions. He entwined his arm around her waist, drawing her closer.

"Please?" Leonardo asked one more time, his breath hot on her neck.

"Oh my _god_!" Kara's head flopped back against the back of the couch. "Yes. _Fine_ ," she snapped, shoving him off. "Just put it on already."

Leonardo stifled a squeal as he pitched himself forward. Karai shook her head as her boyfriend rooted around for the remote. It had to be _somewhere_ on the coffee table. She knew very well what she was getting herself into, but it was Mutation Day, after all. She wondered if she could get a shot or two in with Raphael before Leonardo queued the first episode up.

"Ah ha!" the turtle shouted triumphantly, holding the remote control aloft.

Too late.

Karai crossed her tattooed arms over her chest.

"I hate you," she said flatly.

"I love you too," Leonardo said, planting a kiss on her cheek.


	4. Dating (2003)

Leonardo hit the lawn without a sound.

"This is not a date," Karai said.

"Of course not," Leonardo replied cooly as he straightened himself. "More like a…rendezvous."

She glanced back at him over her shoulder and her jade green eyes flashed in the dark. When she turned away again the turtle slumped slightly in relief. He had made the right decision, leaving that plum wine back at the lair. This was not a date.

He didn't even know if she liked plum wine. Leonardo frowned. He didn't know anything about her. He didn't know if this was a trap. He didn't know her intentions. He could only hope they mirrored his.

Whatever those were.

"Coming, Leonardo?"

The way she said his name sent a shiver down his shell.

Leonardo nodded, watching mutely as Karai slipped into a thicket of bamboo that edged along the grass. The turtle picked up his pace across the lawn; the grass was cool and soft between beneath his feet. She was disappearing into the thicket, into the the parallel shadows cutting across the clearing.

The turtle darted into the bamboo, his milky eyes adjusting quickly to the dark. The small man made forest was thick with the shoots, but the turtle managed to weave through the leafy stocks with ease as he followed her deeper into the dark. Karai snaked through the bamboo effortlessly, her hips swaying in her black dress. And then, just like that, she disappeared into the shadows.

"Karai?" Leonardo whispered, pausing.

When she did not answer he felt his heart rate accelerate. The turtle picked up his pace. The bamboo was so thick he could not see where it ended. If it ended. Had he followed her right into a trap? He felt his heart racing. He could hear it, thundering in his ears.

"Karai?" he called again.

Something rustled amidst the bamboo and his arm instinctively rose over his shell, his fingers eager for the blades sheathed there. Leonardo silently admonished himself for trusting her. She was their enemy. _His_ enemy. How could he have been so blind?

And then he saw her jade green eyes glinting in the dark, and he sputtered to a halt.

"Did I frighten you?" she asked.

"Y-yes," Leonardo stammered breathlessly. Honestly. His heart still thrumming in his chest.

She arched a fine black brow. "Having second thoughts?"

When Leonardo offered no response Karai only smirked.

"Come on then," she said matter of factly, turning away from him. "We haven't got all night."

He made sure to follow her more closely as they continued.

The shadows abated, opening up to the lush landscape of the Japanese tea garden. She strode out of the thicket of bamboo, but Leonardo lingered at the edge of the shadows. There were no lights but the candles that flickered in the stone toro that dotted the garden between the trees. The turtle carefully scanned the manicured landscape of the garden. When nothing stirred, he followed Karai out of the bamboo and onto the path before them. He took cautious steps behind her as they walked the path twining through the small man made hills, skirting the winding waterways that led to a dark, glassy pond at the heart of the garden.

The turtle glanced back over his shoulder. "Are we alone?"

He wanted to hear her say it. She glanced back at him but her stride did not slow.

"Yes," Karai's scarlet lips curled up slyly. Then she turned away from him again, shrugging nonchalantly. "I rented the garden for the night."

Behind her, the turtle cocked a brow ridge.

"Or rather, Oroku Corp has rented the garden for the night," she spread her hands before her, encompassing the beauty of the garden as if to emphasize that nothing she desired was beyond her reach.

Leonardo was unable to stifle a smile as he spoke.

"I thought you said this wasn't a date."


	5. Snow (Mirage Comics)

Leonardo blinked hazily up at the black skeletal trees stretching across the gray sky. He tried to prop himself up on his elbows but they buckled beneath him and he sunk back into the snowbank.

"Karai," her name was a prayer on his lips.

The Foot ninja stood at the edge of the clearing, her dark cloak fluttering in the bitter wind. He strained his eyes and slowly she came into focus. Blood red lips were a hard line across her angular face. Silver snowflakes shone in her black hair.

"Please," he pleaded. "Don't do this"

Her approach was heralded only by the crunch of her boots in the snow.

"It was the Shredder's elite guard," he forced the words out. "I would never -"

He heard the sharp click of her tanto as it slid out of its scabbard.

"My daughter is dead because of you," she said, carefully chosen words sharp with her Japanese accent.

"I didn't kill her," Leonardo shook his head and the whole world spun. The snow was so cold. The dead earth beneath his body lay silent, but he knew it was ready to swallow him whole. "I swear it."

The turtle saw himself in the blade of her short sword, his body splayed out across the red stained snow. His plastron rose slowly as he drew another labored breath. He desperately groped for the remaining katana strapped across his shell, but he could not bring himself to raise his arm. Like him, his katana was buried in the snow. There were shuriken at his belt, but he could not feel his fingers. He could not reach.

She stood above him, her tanto an ugly gray gash across the white snow all around them. Her gaze fell over him and he saw that her cheeks were streaked with the dark kohl that lined her eyes. He watched her red lips tremble and his heart sank. The blade of her short sword quivered and Leonardo saw himself shaking in it.

"I love you," Leonardo confessed.

Her face crumpled in anguish; her beautiful features folding in on themselves, collapsing at the sound of his words. The blade was still trembling in her hand. A curtain of dark hair fell over her face, obscuring it from view. He clung to the desperate thread of a hope that he could reach her, if only he found the right words. But it was so cold. And Leonardo was so tired.

A bitter winter wind rushed over them, blowing her hair from her face for just a moment. Long enough for Leonardo to see the tears upon her cheek.

"I wanted to love you," Karai's hard voice cracked, but her tanto was no longer shaking.

The blade was perfectly still.

He felt his own tears spill over his face, hot and wet as the blood pooling at his side. "It doesn't have to be this way," Leonardo said, weakly. "You have a choice."

 _You always have a choice_ , he wanted to say, but he was too tired. Too weak. Perhaps he had always been weak. He had let his emotions cloud his judgement. Worst of all, he had enjoyed it. He had reveled in his dreams of running away with her. In the dark of night he had closed his eyes and dreamed of his fingers in her hair. He had thought that was what she wanted, too, before she drew her sword in the snow. He had thought it was what they both wanted.

"You have a choice," Leonardo repeated, wheezing, barely able to breathe as he said the words.

"No," Karai said, her steely voice heavy as she raised the tanto above him. "I don't."

Leonardo closed his eyes.

His blood on the snow would be the only marker of his grave, but it would be enough.

Enough to lead his brothers back to him.

 **A/N:** _If things had gone differently in City at War, because Mirage verse Karai is my everything._


	6. Evil AU (IDW Comics)

Karai stood, arms across her armored chest plate, eyes narrowed. As if she had nothing else to do but to stand about being irate. She gave her scarlet scarf a perfunctory yank, stopping when the it hung limp about her neck, then tossed it over her shoulder in irritation. Tapping a booted foot on the wooden dojo floor, she watched. And she waited.

The kunoichi leaned back against the wall, not giving a damn if he thought she was petulant. She was only there because the Shredder had ordered her to be. Her grandfather wanted her relationship with Leonardo to be more…collaborative. Cooperative, he had said. It was "necessary" for the next phase in his plan for the Foot. Their relationship should be less "antagonistic". Leonardo was the second in command, after all. Karai let out a sigh of exasperation and the huff of her breath stirred the black hair that hung around her face. As if she needed yet another reason to resent her grandfather.

The Shredder had given the most prized position in the clan to a boy who hadn't even earned it. Didn't even want it. Three years later, that boy had become a man, but Karai still refused to reconcile her grandfather's decision. Not when she had dedicated her entire life to serving the Foot. Not when she wanted to be his Chunin so badly she could taste it. She could still taste it. Ambition and lust were as hot and metallic as blood in her mouth.

Across the dojo, Leonardo executed a flawless kick, knocking a freshly recruited Foot solider flat on their back. Karai rolled her eyes as their sai skidded across the polished wood floor. Overkill. Yet she still allowed her gaze to drift back to the dojo floor. She made it a point to feign disinterest as she surveyed the crowd of gaping new recruits.

Though Karai would never admit it, the turtle cut an imposing figure in his dark mask and red and black plated Foot Clan armor. Their clan symbol shown a bright blood red across his shoulder, just below the ghastly scar shot up his neck to his face; the unassailable marker of his loyalty. It should have killed him. He should have died that night, yet there he stood. The black wrappings that snaked up his body emphasized the musculature of legs and arms. She realized that he was so much broader now, with the svelte frame of a man instead of a boy. He was taller than when he had come to them years ago, as well. The turtle stood nearly a head taller than she did, even in her boots. Leonardo was almost sort of good looking, now that he wasn't so laughably small. Karai's brow furrowed and she shook her head. _He has always been your enemy_ , she thought. _Never forget that_.

"This is what you'll be up against!" Leonardo orated, standing over the breathless new recruit, who was crumpled on the floor, shaking in his shadow. "The rat is dead, but the turtles still remain," he continued. "They are neither as swift, nor as skilled as I am," his mouth turned up in a wicked grin. "But you get the idea."

A sea of new recruits nodded mutely.

The turtle looked down on the new recruit he had just bested in combat. His ghostly white eyes fell upon the shaking foot soldier. The other new recruits stood unnaturally still around them. Waiting.

"Get up!" Leonardo barked. "Find your sparring partners! Victors line up at the front. You will spar until only one remains. No weapons this time! Hand to hand combat only. The last standing victor will have the pleasure of facing me," he folded his hands behind his shell. " _Hajime_!"

The foot soldiers scattered, scrambling around the dojo like headless animals propelled forward only by an deeply ingrained biological urge to not die. Even if that meant life lasting for only a few more seconds.

Leonardo glanced over his shoulder back to where Karai stood. She made it a point to look undoubtedly displeased. Noting her look of displeasure, the turtle sauntered across the dojo, the crowd of frightened new recruits parting like the dead sea before him. The kunoichi stiffened, her entire body rigid at the turtle's approach. Sliding off the wall, she stood up straight as he drew closer, bringing her hands behind her so he would not see how she curled them into fists. She had hoped he would die, that night. How she had prayed that he would be cut down. Or better yet, go back to the dirty hole he crawled out of, so that she might have the pleasure of killing him herself another day. But her worst nightmare had become flesh when she watched him cut his father down before the Shredder, before his brothers, before her. After that, there was no turning back.

He was the Chunin of the Foot Clan. Her grandfather's right hand. And she hated him.

"Karai," the turtle inclined his head towards her in a mock bow. "How kind of you to join us today."

"Spare me the pleasantries, Leonardo. You know just as well as I that I am only here because my grandfather expects me to be," she said as returned the shallow bow. When she righted herself she glared back at him. "I have other business to attend to shortly."

"That's unfortunate," Leonardo said as he came to stand beside her. "Especially since you look so fetching today."

Karai instinctively rolled her eyes.

Instead of moving on, he only persisted in his efforts to agitate her. The turtle smirked and pushed a single presumptuous finger beneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him. "Is that any way to address your Chunin?"

Karai jerked away, repulsed by his touch. "You'll get my respect when you earn it, _freak_ ," she snapped back at him like a viper.

"And how exactly am I supposed to do that?" he arched a brow ridge suggestively.

Karai's expression soured. "You disgust me."

As Leonardo let out a self-satisfied chuckle, Karai trained her eyes back on the dojo floor to watch the new recruits. She possessed neither the time nor the patience to veil her revulsion for Leonardo. She had always hated him. Always would. The kunoichi had decided long ago that pretending that she felt anything otherwise only gave him power over her. And he already possessed too much power as the chunin. But he hadn't even earned it.

She stood silently, watching. Across the dojo, a young boy raised her arm to deliver a final blow to his sparring partner. But he left himself open. A foolish mistake. His partner, a small, lithe teenage girl, quickly side-stepped him, circling around behind him swiftly in a graceful, deadly dance. Without pausing, she struck at the base of his spine, and her opponent crumpled to his knees before her. Karai's lips flattened. They were swift, and strong, but their technique was shambolic at best. It was clear to Karai that these new recruits were concerned only with making it to the next round instead of mastering the movements.

"Sloppy," Karai shook her head.

"Excuse me?"

"I can't believe I'm about to say this," Karai said, sighing, disgusted with herself, "But you're being too hard on them."

"We will never succeed in our purpose if our recruits are soft," he said, his voice low. "And they have only just begun down the path." He then turned to her, a condescending, confident grin splitting his face. "You must have patience, Karai."

Karai's dark eyes met his, refusing to allow him to make her ill at ease.

They had spent so long dutifully eschewing any potential interaction, devoted entirely to their contempt for one another. This was the first time they had actually spoken in years. Leonardo's confidence was new and entirely unsettling. Karai felt her exposed flesh prickle, gripped by a ripple of goosebumps, though the temperature of the dojo remained unchanged. Equally unnerved and intrigued, she turned away from him, training her eyes on the dojo to observe. The Chunin watched his students silently, but she could see the pride shining in his preternatural eyes.

Beside him, Karai bristled. This was not the boy brainwashed by Kitsune's magics, but a formidable young man, fiery with the spark of his own ambitions and purpose. She silently cautioned herself to keep her distance. To keep herself from being burned. She almost smirked. As if she had ever been one to shy away from playing with fire.

But the key to playing with fire was always to know which pyres to stoke, and which to smother.

Attempting to disguise her discomfort by shifting her weight, she folded her hands behind her as she stood silently beside her old enemy. His ghostly eyes seemed far away. She watched him, watching the new recruits, as if he was staring beyond the present into some unseen future for them all. As if he was harboring a vision not just of what they were, but what they would become.

"They won't master the hidden door this way," Karai said, flatly.

Leonardo's shoulders shook as he laughed off her words. "Don't be ridiculous."

"But they're not learning anything," she turned to him, gesturing to the dojo floor. "They're just thrashing out, afraid of failing." Her eyes hardened. "Afraid of you."

"Perhaps they should be," Leonardo said, leaning in dangerously close. "Like you said. I'm a freak," his breath was hot on her neck. It sent a cold chill down her spine. "A _monster_."

"I never said you were a monster," she said, more defensively than she had intended.

Karai stepped back.

"But that's what you meant, wasn't it?" Leonardo simply smiled at her. "That's what you thought."

She swallowed, hard. He had killed his father, and she had watched him do it.

He was a monster.

"Yes," her confession was only a whisper, nearly lost amidst the symphony of violence in motion all around them.

"Good," Leonardo said, smiling. "I'm glad we can be honest with one another."

She took another step back, away from him. He was so close she could feel her skin crawl. But she felt something else, too. There was something about the way he said those words stirred an ugly, niggling need deep inside her to tell him everything. To give him anything he wanted. Something hot surged through her veins, furious as fire. She could felt it in her flesh, in the heat in her cheeks. A slow burn that would consume her entirely.

Karai felt herself begin to fall.

One boot hitched behind the other as she took a step away from him, and she was careening backwards. His arm reached around her, catching her before she fell. Karai stiffened against him as he supported her weight with a single hand. She looked up at him, eyes wide. Other than a few notable occasions when they had attempted to slit each other's throats, they had never been so close.

"Got you."

Karai felt her cheeks burn red. She cursed herself for her stupidity, for her fear; for letting him back her into a corner. Her heart beat wildly beneath her armor.

"Unhand me!" she snapped, trying her damndest to sound furious instead of flustered.

"As you wish," Leonardo said, words smooth as silk.

The kunoichi righted herself quickly, awkwardly brushing the tunic under her armor to smooth out the wrinkles. She hooked her scarf with her finger, slinging it back loosely around her neck. Just the way she liked it. But she kept her eyes on the floor. Her cheeks were still burning.

"So," he said, taking another step closer to her once she had straightened herself out. "Since we're being honest, I'm going to ask you again." He leaned over her, smiling handsomely. "How exactly would you suggest I go about earning your respect?"

Karai stared mutely into his eerie white eyes. She wanted to speak, but no words came. She hated him! How dare he touch her like that. And even worse, how dare she like it.

"Think about it," he shrugged, then turned and sauntered away. "And please. Stay. Perhaps by the end of the day, my approach will seem less...monstrous."

She only continued to stare, silent. Inside a storm gripped her, a thousand emotions screaming out at once to be heard. Anger. Fear. And something else that burned deep inside her. She could feel it all roiling inside her, threatening to destroy everything in their path. Karai hated him now more than ever. She did not want to care what he did, or how he did it, as long as she stayed out of her way. Yet she could not bring herself to look away as he wove in between the new recruits, the tails of his black bandana drifting behind him.

Across the dojo, Leonardo paused, ordering a young boy with dark shortly cropped hair to straighten himself. The boy nodded eagerly, immediately correcting his form. Karai smirked. He had listened.

The chunin inclined his head to the boy, barely enough to be a nod, then continued on his way, hands folded behind his shell. Karai blinked as the realization came to her; a light flaring painfully bright in the darkness. They weren't just afraid of him. They _admired_ him. And then she stiffened. Were they loyal to him, too? Her blood ran cold. In her mind's eye she saw that night, the night that left him with that ghastly scar; the night he ran his katana through that old rat. And she wondered, if he could kill Hamato Yoshi…could he kill the Oroku Saki, too?

A grin broke across her face.

And she knew she had an answer to Leonardo's question, after all.


	7. Whatever You Want (IDW Evil AU)

"I thought you hated him."

"I do!" Karai snapped, her cheeks flushed from fury and too much sake.

Her cousin Pimiko raised an incredulous pink brow, but she did not stop running her shinobigatana over the dark gray whetstone. "It doesn't _sound_ like you hate him."

Karai leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. _I hate him_ , she thought. She had told herself this countless times since she had left him in the dojo that day, and repeated it even more as she recounted what had happened between her and Leonardo to her closest friend and confidant. She slumped against the wall and began to slip down. Her eyes widened with surprise when her ass hit the floor. She had gotten lost, thinking about him again.

Pimiko only continued to run her short sword over the coarse whetstone which rested atop the small wooden block before her on the floor. The sound of metal upon stone was so soothing. Karai closed her eyes, and there he was. Leonardo. Gazing back at her with his ghostly white eyes. She shuddered, eyes flaring open to see Pimiko wetting the stone again, preparing to sharpen the other side of her blade.

The kunoichi leaned forward, clumsily groping for the carafe of sake on the low wooden table between her and her cousin. She plucked the bottle up between two fingers, shaking it just so in order to gauge how much sake was left. Karai frowned. Almost empty. Instead of pouring the remaining alcohol into her cup, Karai brought the carafe to her lips and tipped it back. The sake was smooth, but shooting it still made her throat burn. When she slammed the empty carafe back on the table, and Pimiko looked up from her work, surprised. Her lips twisted into a smirk.

Karai wrinkled her nose. "What?"

"You've got it bad," Pimiko said, still smirking.

"I do not!" Karai protested hotly.

"Keep telling yourself that," she snorted.

Pimiko shook her head as she angled her blade over the whetstone to sharpen its tip, her pink ponytail swaying as she did so. Karai slumped over the table. She cradled her head miserably in her hands, hiding her face beneath a veil of her thick black hair. It was just as well. Pimiko's room was beginning to reel around her. She closed her eyes again, welcoming the comfort of the endless, blank black. But there he was again, smiling that smug smile.

Leonardo, who she had hated for so long. Leonardo, who now lit a fire inside her, stoking the flames of her hatred, her ambition and her lust. She could feel that fire, licking up inside her now, making her quiver in her armor at the thought of the power she could wield if only she could convince him to join her. She felt the heat rise in her face, though she told herself it was just the sake, and not the thought of his breath on her neck, his hand on the curve her back, drawing him closer to him, keeping her from falling.

"Pimiko," Karai whined, pathetically drunk. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Do whatever you want Karai," Pimiko replied coolly, holding her freshly sharpened blade up. The metal glinted hungrily in the low light. "Just don't let the Shredder catch you."


End file.
